Tuesday, June 6

Keep a look out for this Watch Officer of the Kriegsmarine from Alpine Miniatures this month.

Alpine Miniatures has three new resin figures released this month in four configurations. Two single 35th scale figures and a set, as well as a larger scale 16th figure of a U-boat Watch Officer that looks far from out to sea. Let's have a look at the larger 16th scale figure in our preview...

Alpine Miniatures new item for July 2017.

German U-Boat Watch Officer

1/16th scale

#16036

Sculpture by Taesung Harmms

Boxart by Myouchin

Product Link

this watch Officer of the Kriegsmarine is seen in a typical outfit of the Kriegsmarine Wachoffizier (Watch Officer) with a leather coat and pants that insulate from the cold and the water to a certain extent. These men served for long hours on the conning tower with their large, high power 7x50 opticals on he looks out for enemy ships on the surface and under it, but also from the threats of the enemy aircraft.

The two head options - standard with Alpine's range of figures - of this officer of the watch are typical of a sailor of this period. The choice of the overseas flat cap and the officer's visor cap are both offered with the same face of the sailor. The bearded man looks like a young and handsome figure that could have been portrayed on a "signal" magazine cover. You may notice his cap and peaked visor with the ship's logo of the swordfish on it. This is a well known amongst U-boat fans.

The dark blue doeskin cap with yellow on blue BeVo woven eagle & swastika and embroidered style cockade. To the side of the cap is the distinctive swordfish cap badge worn by members of U-591 from 1943 onwards, (and U-954 from 1942); swordfish cap badges may have also been used by other U-Boats so this may be from another boat. We have a picture of one in brass on a very old WWII cap.

An example of this is the same logo is seen here on U-96. On top of the conning tower in this picture are the five commanders of U-96. Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, Hans-Jürgen Hellriegel, Wilhelm Peters, Horst Willner, and Robert Rix.

The W/O wears a grey leather U-boat jacket and pants. The U-boat Packchen or battle dress - one of the many specialist Kriegsmarine uniforms, it has a stand collar with single breasted buttons and a breast pocket. I had a little look at jackets still available in collector’s market and this jacket matches it butting for button, pocket and stitch. The folds in the heavy clothing look very good to me – the pants also look great with folds and creases in the thick leather in all of the right naturalistic places,

The officer is seen with not much to denote his status, but the sculpt gives us clues. His leather gloves and braided rope that will have a whistle attached to it in an unseen pocket in his leather coat, as well as the pip on the sideboards of his jacket, denote his officer status.

This figure will be a really popular kit in this detail and this scale, and we think he will team up very nicely with Lapine Miniature's earlier sculpt of the U-Boat Captain no# 16012.